Stanley harbour lofty ambitions on return to 'big time'

After 44 years in the non-League wilderness, Accrington Stanley are relishing their historic trip to Chester today but are determined to run a tight ship

For a club so associated with financial calamity, Accrington Stanley have been displaying a remarkable amount of entrepreneurial zeal in the past week. The club are optimistically auctioning off a programme and ticket from the recent Nationwide League Annual Congress and promoting a £5 "bumper programme" for next Tuesday's home match against Darlington.

They have very good reason to be so busy. After 44 years in the non-League wilderness, Stanley return to the Football League today and are determined to ensure that the money problems that saw them tumble out of the old Fourth Division - becoming the first professional side too broke to fulfil their fixtures - will not be repeated.

The club have made it back the hard way, under the tight financial management of Eric Whalley, an east Lancastrian who played twice for Accrington reserves and managed the club before finally buying it for £80,000 in 1995. But Accrington are not inclined to let the euphoria of today's historic trip to Chester go to their heads.

"Some Football League clubs owe a lot of money and have debts hanging over them," said the club's chief executive, Robert Heys. "At Accrington we run a very tight ship. We don't spend more money than we have coming in. We do not owe any money. We are not paying silly interest charges to the banks. So anything we make is ours. You have to run your club as you would a business."

That strict financial policy applies to the playing staff too, with the emphasis on salary incentives - cash for points and performances. "That is the only way to operate in football, in our view," said Heys.

He and his chairman know that some of the challenges which put the club out of the League last time have not gone away, particularly that of pulling fans through the turnstiles. Heys has budgeted for gates of between 2,000-2,500 in the first season back in League Two, considerably more than the 1,700 last season with which Whalley openly expressed some disgruntlement. The town's location, five miles from both Blackburn (who beat Stanley 3-0 in pre-season) and Burnley does not help.

But it is hard not to be excited by the colourful side drawn together by John Coleman, the Liverpudlian manager Whalley hired seven years ago, who left his job as a teacher to run the squad full-time. Which League Two side but Stanley, for instance, can command an international captain in the ranks? That individual is the French-born Romuald Boco, signed from the French side Chamois Niortais, who has 14 international caps for Benin, having made his debut for the country at 18. In pre-season, another French-based African, Julian N'Da, arrived. A 20-year-old centre-back, he has represented the Ivory Coast at under-21 level.

But it is the 21-year-old Boco who is the talk of Accrington's 4,500-capacity Interlink Stadium. "Rommy was very exciting last year and this season he looks even fitter and this could be his year," said his manager. "He's a very single-minded person and dedicated to everything he does, from playing football to learning his English."

Coleman also has Sean Doherty from Port Vale, Joel Byrom, released by Blackburn, and Jay Harris, a trainee let go by Everton, and there is the club's much-loved quintessential Accringtonian - Paul Mullin, released by the club as a youth player but re-signed from a local league for £10,000 and player of the year for four of the past five seasons. "I'm still looking to bring a striker in," said Coleman. "But the difference from last season is that I have a squad of 21 and everybody is pushing for a place - even to get on the bench."

Coleman, whose teams are known for their passing game, believes the gulf between League Two and the Conference, which his side won with an 11-point cushion, is not so vast . "The difference is that everybody has a couple of good players at least and it is more physical. But we can make great strides," he said.

His board might just settle for a few years of financial security. "We have won three championships in six years and being back in the League is what we have been aiming for," said Heys. "It also exciting for those who endured the heartache of what happened in 1962. But we want to be up here for the future."